The present invention generally relates to a network management/display processing system and method and, more particularly, to a system and method for displaying on a display unit a state of a communication network including exchanges and data multiplexers using data of a network manager collected from the communication network.
To more efficiently operate and maintain a communication network, the invention provides a communication network managing system which manages the communication network based on operational data collected from the network. IEEE, 1988, Network Operations and Management Symposium, 17-1, discloses a technique in which the above operational data is used to display the operating state on the screen of a display unit in the form of a simulated communication network. However, a detailed description of the data processing of the display unit is not given.
Disclosed in JP-A-64-81990 is an example of an ordinary display processing technique, when a display unit has an insufficient ability, for realizing on the display unit such conversion and processing of display data as display attribute conversion and control.
Problems occur with the aforementioned communication network management system where the display unit is located away from the network manager, where a plurality of display units have different application purposes or where the communication network contains many objects to be managed. When the network manager transmits management data to the display unit or units to convert the management data into the display data on the display unit or units, the display unit must have a very large memory capacity, which results in an increased processing load and an enlarged communication quantity between the network manager and display unit(s). In particular, in a communication network management system based on OSI specifications, ISO/IEC DIS 10165-1 and 10165-2 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the representation format of a standard object to be managed has a very long data length. Thus, communication between the network manager and display unit using this standard format without any modification results in an enormous communication quantity therebetween and a reduced data processing efficiency of the display unit.